1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a holding device configured to hold a coupler adapter used in a railcar.
2. Description of the Related Art
When a railcar breaks down on a main line or when power is not applied to the railcar in a car depot, the railcar (hereinafter referred to as a “towed vehicle”) may be coupled to a towing vehicle to be moved by the towing vehicle. At this time, if a coupler of the towing vehicle and a coupler of the towed vehicle are different in type from each other, these couplers cannot be directly coupled to each other. Therefore, these couplers are coupled to each other via a coupler adapter. As such coupler adapter, for example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application Publication No. 2007-83875 (paragraphs 0002 and 0006) discloses a coupling mechanism including a coupling rod and explains that the cost is low and a vehicle tip end portion can be reduced in weight.
Here, the coupler adapter may be stored in a coupler adapter storing portion provided in the vicinity of the coupler of the towed vehicle. To prevent the coupler adapter from falling off, the coupler adapter is fixed to the coupler adapter storing portion by a fixing member. To use the coupler adapter fixed to the coupler adapter storing portion and put the coupler adapter back to the coupler adapter storing portion, the following operations (i) to (vii) needs to be carried out.
(i) Detach the fixing member from the coupler adapter.
(ii) Take out the coupler adapter from the coupler storing portion and put it on the ground.
(iii) Lift up the coupler adapter and attach it to the coupler of the towed vehicle.
(iv) Use the coupler adapter (Couple the towing vehicle and the towed vehicle via the coupler adapter and move the towed vehicle).
(v) Uncouple the towing vehicle and the towed vehicle, detach the coupler adapter from the coupler of the towed vehicle, and put the coupler adapter on the ground.
(vi) Lift up the coupler adapter and put it back to the coupler adapter storing portion.
(vii) Fix the coupler adapter to the coupler storing portion by the fixing member.
Since the coupler adapter requires adequate strength, it is generally heavy (for example, 50 kg). Therefore, among the above operations, the operation of putting the coupler adapter on the ground from the coupler adapter storing portion and the operation of lifting up the coupler adapter to the height of the coupler are burden on an operator and take time. Further, the operations necessary for attaching the coupler adapter need to be carried out by a plurality of operators. Thus, all of the operations require a plurality of operators.
In the coupling mechanism described in the above publication, CFRP is used as a part of the coupling rod to reduce the weight. However, using the CFRP for the coupler adapter increases the cost and is not realistic. Therefore, it is difficult to reduce the weight of the coupler adapter.